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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Fables: Storybook Love Volume 3 by Bill Willingham

Genre: Fantasy / Adventure

Year Published: 2004

Year Read: 2012

Series: Fables #3

Publisher: Vertigo Comics

Brief Introduction:

After reading the first two volumes in Bill Willingham’s well-praised graphic novel series “Fables,” I just had to check out the
third volume “Fables: Storybook Love”
and at this moment, this volume has restored my faith in the “Fables” series!That is not to say that the first two volumes
were not great, but when I read the first two volumes, there was not enough
development going on for the characters and I felt that I was reading filler
stories rather than a good introduction to this series.For anyone who wants to read a good volume of
the “Fables” series, this is the
volume to definitely pick up!

What is the story?

In this volume, there are
several stories that really make up the future set up for the Fables characters
including “Bag O’Bones,” which tells
the story of Jack trying to trick Death, “A
Sharp Operation” where Bigby Wolf has to stop a news reporter from exposing
the secrets of Fabletown, “Storybook
Love,” the main story where Bigby Wolf and Snow White realize that someone
from Fabletown is threatening to kill them and “Barley Corn Brides” where it tells the story of how the
Lilliputian Forces tried to find barely corn to produce more women in their
village.

What I loved about this comic:

Bill Willingham’s writing!: Just
like the first two volumes, I really enjoyed the way that Bill Willingham tied in all of the fairy tale and folklore
characters into a more modern day setting as they were run out of their
homeland by the Adversary and are forced to live in the human world.I believe that Bill Willingham’s style of storytelling has
definitely improved in this volume as the characters are much more fleshed out
in this volume than they were in the previous volumes.I really enjoyed seeing more of the
relationship between Snow White and Bigby Wolf as they seem to slightly
complement each other, with Snow White being proper and authoritative and Bigby
Wolf being more gruff and sly.Bill
Willingham has also done a brilliant job at mixing in some snappy dialogue to the
characters within a dramatic storyline, such as hearing funny lines from Little
Boy Blue while he and Jack and Bigby are trying to sneak into the news
reporter’s apartment to erase his photos of Fabletown.I also loved the little side stories like “Bag
O’Bones” and “Barley Corn Brides” as they not only go into depth about the
characters such as Jack and the Lilliputian
people, but they also slightly bring up points about how the Adversary affected
their lives (which was something I have been complaining about how the first
two volumes rarely went into detail about the Adversary).

The artwork:
This was the actual first volume I
have seen from the “Fables” series
that uses several different artists to tell each story and I think that it
greatly fits with the mood of each story.Probably my most favorite artwork in this graphic novel was the artwork
done in the story “A Sharp Operation” which
was done by Lan Medina.I loved the way that Lan Medina
gave details to the characters facial expressions as they reflect anger and
sadness and I also loved the way that Lan
Medina made all of the characters extremely realistic, which really brings
out the dramatic nature of the story.I
also enjoyed the artwork in “Storybook
Love” done by Mark Buckingham,
although my only quip with the artwork is the way that the characters’ faces
lack vivid detail like Lan Medina’s artwork.The artwork done by Linda Medley in the story “Barley
Corn Brides” was the one that truly stood out from the rest of the artwork
as the characters look like cartoon characters and the colorings were much
brighter in this story.Bryan Talbot’s artwork in “Bag O’Bones” was truly realistic and
dramatic as the battle scenes are done in vivid detail.

What made me feel uncomfortable about this book:

Anyone who does not like
strong language and gory violence in a graphic novel might be a bit put off by
this graphic novel.The language is
extremely strong as it uses words like the “f” word and the “s” word and that
might be offensive for anyone who does not like strong language.Also, there are many gory scenes in this
graphic novel, especially in the story “Bag O’Bones” and “Storybook Love” and
since they are extremely graphic, this would be too unsettling to read through.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, “Fables:
Storybook Love” is definitely much more improved from the previous volumes
as the characters are better developed and we actually get to see something
really happening with the storyline.Now, I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the “Fables” series!

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Hello! I'm Ronyell and anyone who wants to be my friend is free to become friends with me! Also, I love followers on my blog, since I have so many great things to talk about the various books I read from time to time. I love to read, exercise, sleep and surf on the internet, with reading being my most favorite activity.
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